Listen, I'm no stranger to being called "depressing" or "cringe" by randos on the internet. It's always so silly to me because I'm actually always laughing, creating elaborate hilarious backstories for my cats, singing made up songs, and wearing fabulous outfits.
But it is interesting that the comeback to "don't buy disappointing shit" is always "you suck and you're depressing." In fact, in last week's Costco Esprit sweatshirt discourse, lots of people (on Threads) thought I was a bummer, bitter, and even a "buzzkill."
If you dig into that, it reveals something important: decades of marketing have successfully transformed us as humans, making us believe that the only real source of joy is shopping. And TBH if you think buying something is an easy way to cheer yourself up, you're not alone. I was raised to feel the same way. Shopping was literally the only time my family seemed to get along. Telling someone to buy something (because they "deserved" it) was how we showed our love.
So yeah, a lot of us think shopping = fun, joy, happiness. Of course, these days shopping is also often disappointing and stressful. Sometimes we end up feeling scammed or questioning the size and shape of our bodies. Still, when shopping = happiness, you start to thing that non shopping = unhappiness and misery.
But actually...the slow fashion way of life is filled with joy, creativity, connection, and fun! Seriously, I might be tree hugging, compost loving, Costco Esprit sweatshirt hating buzzkill, but somehow I'm happier than I've ever been because I'm constantly feeding my brain and my heart with information, new skills, and creative thinking.
Anyway, I was inspired by the Threads feedback last week to create my own graphics about this. As I was playing around with this idea while I playing with the foster kittens last night, I realized that it was reminding me of a new version of the 90s Nirvana shirt. So I tracked down the Nirvana font (it's called Onyx) and I used images from the 1978 children's book, Baby's Toy Box. This post took 3 hours to make.
germansingergirl
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
stormborns
theartofmadeline
